Innovation refers to creating new effective ideas, products, and processes (Leiponen & Helfat, 2010). In a business context, innovations could mean the implementation of new ideas, creation of dynamic products, and improving existing services. Innovations in business not only involve inventions but also change the model of an organization’s governance and assist it in adapting to new environmental conditions, which, in turn, ensures the delivery of better services and products to consumers (Evangelista & Vezzani, 2010). Innovative companies have high productivity, improved performance, and efficient work processes (Sorescu et al., 2011). Additionally, successful innovations are a part of a business strategy where managers create an innovative culture. Such leaders use creative ways to solve problems in businesses, in addition to leading other staff members in innovative thinking. This report will discuss sources of innovation, assess business trends, and forecasts factors affecting online businesses, as well as will provide an evaluation of potential disruptive innovations.
Sources of Innovation
Innovative ideas come from different places depending on the form of a business and environment. In most companies, customers are the greatest influencers encouraging innovative ideas. Other sources of innovative concepts and approaches include suppliers, sales and marketing platforms, firm leaders, competitors, and employees (Tranekjer & Søndergaard, 2013). Bindroo, Mariadoss and Pillai (2012) assert that customers give the final evaluation of services and products produced by a business and provide important business ideas because they are the main drivers of sales. To get ideas, business leaders should gather customers’ feedback as clients are a party that directly experiences the impact of the products and services. Furthermore, the Internet is a perfect source of getting ideas from customers. Björk and Magnusson (2009) note that clients may provide reviews of products through online platforms. Therefore, businesses should allow consumers to submit improvement areas, which will provide information to help derive product enhancements and new ideas.
Firm leaders and competing companies are also helpful sources of innovation ideas. Tradeshows, exhibitions, and conferences provide an insight on new market trends and practices (Leiponen & Helfat, 2010). In turn, such concepts can be used by businesses to modify already existing products or to create new ones. Therefore, business leaders should stay networked and well-connected with other leaders to gather new ideas to improve the work of their departments, products, and service delivery.
Moreover, old concepts should not be disregarded when getting new ideas for making product enhancements and creating new approaches. Poorly evaluated ideas should not be abandoned because they may be underestimated and inspire other innovations (Tranekjer & Søndergaard, 2013). The answering machine is a good example of a past idea that was not achieved initially due to poor recording quality and inhibitive costs. Later in the 1970s, an answering machine that was smaller in size and of high quality was developed reaching the success (Tranekjer & Søndergaard, 2013). It shows that a past idea that was not advanced can inspire an innovation that would ensure the organizational success.
Changes in market structure and an industry also encourages the creation and implementation of innovations. Tranekjer and Søndergaard (2013) posit that the current development of markets and fields is dynamic leading to changes in goods and services. Some product lines change due to the constant technological advance. If an industry was previously regulated, new entrants would likely to be successful. Similarly, structural problems and convergence of several technologies, which often emanate from alterations in market structure, also inspire innovations. Therefore, it is imperative to keep track of new developments in the markets and industries to facilitate the innovation process in the appropriate manner.
Demographic alterations also lead to creating innovative ideas. Leiponen and Helfat (2010) argue that changes constantly occur because of different income levels, populations, age, and human capital around the modern world. Smart business leaders pay attention to such issues to capitalize on them. People have undergone alterations over time. In turn, such a tendency affects demand of products and services. Hence, to take advantage of such situations, businesses must come up with innovative ideas to improve their products and ensure that their products perfectly satisfy customer needs, thereby, keeping high demand for their products.
Trends and Forecasts Affecting the Mobile Industry
In the world of technology, the mobile industry has had undergone the significant innovations during the last decade. Rawassizadeh, Price, and Petre (2015) assert that wearables devices have become a trend in the mobile industry. Some of the most influential companies in the industry have used this approach to capitalize on the trend. This variety includes Samsung and Apple. For instance, Apple Inc. made seven million sales of wearables within six months (Rawassizadeh et al., 2015). The Apple watch gained much attention in the world of technology. Taking into consideration that fitness is also a popular activity in the modern world; the companies are incorporating features such as calories measurement applications on devices to help those who would wish to manage their weight. Therefore, apart from the basic features of smartphones, mobile manufacturers have to consider new customer needs emanating from their daily lives.
The Internet has also become a vital tool for the modern people as they cannot prosper without it today. It is predicted that all devices will soon become connected to the Internet (Rawassizadeh et al., 2015). Recent trends that have proven this statement include smart cars and smart TVs. The speed of Bluetooth is expected to raise to improve connections and operations. Bluetooth is now used to connect mobile phones with external speakers, as well as watches, among other devices. Therefore, there is a general increase in new technologies to ensure faster connectivity among devices to make people more productive.
According to Du et al. (2011), 3D touch is a recent technology pioneered by Apple Inc. that considerably changed the market. The recent release, iPhone 6s, was accompanied by the innovation. This technology improves the way in which people interact with their phones. In turn, 3D touch uses the intensity of pressure applied on the screen to display different features and to offer various functionalities dependent on the deepness of the pressure. Hence, Samsung and Apple are in stiff rivalry to ensure that they out-compete each other by offering the best 3D touch smart phones. Indeed, the advancements in 3D technology is diverse and will improve, thereby, making pressure on the companies that did not implement it.
Similarly, Lyman et al. (2013) note that mobile payments have become popular in both developing and developed countries. Payments and other commerce operations have become mobile due to the advanced mobile phone technology. Some of the factors inspiring the progress of mobile payments include security and convenience. People want to get more secure access to their money in banks. Using mobile phones to reach the bank also saves time and energy. In turn, a good example of a firm that took mobile payments is Starbucks Company where buyers pay for coffee using mobile applications (Holzer & Ondrus, 2011). Other brands that are releasing mobile applications for making payments include Google, Samsung, and Apple. Thus, the advancement of mobile money may replace traditional bank queues in the long-term as the world moves to a cashless system.
Psychokinetic smart phones are also expected to become quite popular in future. Less than two decades ago, people only interacted with their mobile phones using a small keypad. With time, the keypad became a touch screen, which is now trending. Some of the advantages of using touch screen keypads is that they are fast and more appealing than traditional pads. After some time, people were then able to control their phones using gestures, voice, eye movement, and touch (Mossbridge, 2015). Samsung is working on innovations that will enable people to interact with their mobile devices using their brain. As such, innovation in the use of keypads will experience many changes over time as new technologies are discovered to suit varying customer preferences and desire to obtain innovations.
Possible Disruptive Innovations
Despite the many benefits of innovations in the mobile phones industry, inventions such as cellphone games have led to disruptions of most activities carried out by people. For instance, some of the mobile games that have become widely popular include the Super Mario Run and Pokemon Go craze. 5 million dollars had been generated within 24 hours of Super Mario Run since 10 million downloads were done (Ortega et al., 2013). Games have become one of the most profitable businesses in mobile applications industry because they generate great numbers of revenue revenue. Most innovators are busy trying to create the best games so that they may also benefit financially. This diverts their attention away from other more useful innovations. Efforts that could be focused on inventing technologies that lead to improved efficiency and business productivity are made for developing games and other pointless mobile applications. Games also make people get out of touch from reality (Cortimiglia, Ghezzi & Renga, 2011). In turn, they affect social lives by leading to reduced communication and physical interactions with other people. Thus, in spite of the rapid development of innovations, there are adverse side of the progress, which is perfectly exemplified by the focus on creating game applications negatively affecting the society.
Likewise, Artificial intelligence (AI) in mobile phones is a technology that is not wide spread, but it may gain prominence in the near future due to its numerous advantages; however, there are some threats, as well. Zheng et al. (2012) state that an increasing number of developers are incorporating Artificial Intelligence in most products. The technology enhances communication with other mobile applications. Some of the apps using this technology include Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Artificial Intelligence in mobile applications also improves interactions with Google Home and other electronic devices. The technology also plays the role of a personal tutor; an example is smart phones’ chat bots and conversational interfaces. However, artificial technology in the devices may not be desirable in future because it may interfere with the privacy of users. The technology could also be used for criminal activities as well as improving security. Therefore, even with the good intentions of developing artificial intelligence, developers continue to open an avenue for its misuse.
Conclusion
The report has revealed that despite potential disruptive inventions, there are different sources of innovations, which have been instrumental in influencing new business trends, thereby, intensifying the overall prosperity of the world. Advancements in technology have increased in the past few decades leading to increased productivity, improved efficiency of operations, and better lifestyles. Some of the sources of new ideas include employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, demography, sales and marketing, and old ideas among others. In turn, some of the most popular recent mobile phone innovations are wearables, 3-D touch, Bluetooth connectivity, and mobile payments. Mobile business games and artificial intelligence are possible mobile disruptive innovations. Therefore, the success and benefits of innovation depend on how users embrace them, which leaves room for their misuse.
References
Bindroo, V., Mariadoss, B. J., & Pillai, R. G. (2012). Customer clusters as sources of innovation-based competitive advantage. Journal of International Marketing, 20(3), 17-33.
Björk, J., & Magnusson, M. (2009). Where do good innovation ideas come from? Exploring the influence of network connectivity on innovation idea quality. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 26(6), 662-670.
Cortimiglia, M. N., Ghezzi, A., & Renga, F. (2011). Mobile applications and their delivery platforms. IT Professional, 13(5), 51-56.
Du, Y., Ren, H., Pan, G., & Li, S. (2011, September). Tilt & touch: Mobile phone for 3D interaction. In Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Ubiquitous computing (pp. 485-486). New York, NY: ACM.
Evangelista, R. & Vezzani, A. (2010). The economic impact of technological and organizational innovations. A firm-level analysis. Research Policy, 39(10), 1253-1263.
Holzer, A. & Ondrus, J. (2011). Mobile application market: A developer’s perspective. Telematics and Informatics, 28(1), 22-31.
Leiponen, A. & Helfat, C. E. (2010). Innovation objectives, knowledge sources, and the benefits of breadth. Strategic Management Journal, 31(2), 224-236.
Lyman, D. J., Gatesman, K. J., Chase, R. H., Veettil, R. P., & Saraka, L. H. (2013). Systems and methods for enabling mobile payments. U.S. Patent Application No. 13/466,044.
Mossbridge, J. (2015). Time and the unconscious mind. Retrieved from: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1503/1503.01368.pdf
Ortega, J., Shaker, N., Togelius, J., & Yannakakis, G. N. (2013). Imitating human playing styles in Super Mario Bros. Entertainment Computing, 4(2), 93-104.
Rawassizadeh, R., Price, B. A., & Petre, M. (2015). Wearables: Has the age of smartwatches finally arrived? Communications of the ACM, 58(1), 45-47.
Sorescu, A., Frambach, R. T., Singh, J., Rangaswamy, A., & Bridges, C. (2011). Innovations in retail business models. Journal of Retailing, 87(1), S3-S16.
Tranekjer, T. L., & Søndergaard, H. A. (2013). Sources of innovation, their combinations, and strengths–benefits at the NPD project level. International Journal of Technology Management 12, 61(3/4), 205-236.
Zheng, V. W., Zheng, Y., Xie, X., & Yang, Q. (2012). Towards mobile intelligence: Learning from GPS history data for collaborative recommendation. Artificial Intelligence, 18(4), 17-37.
